As the war planes loom overhead

The sounds that terrified during the war –the roar of F-16s, the drones, border and sea shelling, air strikes…these still go on in Gaza. You just don’t hear about them in the mainstream media, until it’s absolutely necessary to acknowledge Israel’s terrorizing of a trapped population. And then the news goes something like “in the first strikes in 3 months…”, neglecting the routine bombing of tunnels, the sea harassment, the farmers and civilians dead and injured from Israeli shooting in the 1 km of ‘buffer zone’, Israeli-imposed (and only on the Gaza side).

There’s a sonic boom now: they are more than a blast of speed, they’re a simulation of bombing, and with them are the rush of a US-funded, Canadian-parts-supplied warplane flying low overhead.

So it was particularly fitting that I should come across an interview with Mazin Qumsiyeh in which he highlights a little-spoken but massive truth about Israel:

The Israeli economy is booming because it is based on the export of weapons and conflict.

“Israel is now the biggest exporter of conflicts in the world, in my opinion, surpassing even the United States. For example, the Sri Lankan government uses Israeli weapons and expertise against the Tamils, committing massacres even as we speak. And Israel profits financially. The Israeli economy is booming because it is based on the export of weapons and conflict. In addition, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip nets Israel billions of dollars each year. Approximately 40 to 45 percent of all humanitarian aid into the Occupied Palestinian Territory ends up in Israeli hands. This is documented by a series of publications and research on the economy of the occupation by Israeli researcher Sher Hever of the Alternative Information Center. The occupation is big business.“

International Journalism Award From Mexican Press Club March 2017

about me

Eva Bartlett is an independent writer and rights activist with extensive experience in Syria and in the Gaza Strip, where she lived a cumulative three years (from late 2008 to early 2013). She documented the 2008/9 and 2012 Israeli war crimes and attacks on Gaza while riding in ambulances and reporting from hospitals.
Since April 2014, she has visited Syria 7 times, including two months in summer 2016 and one month in Oct/Nov 2016 and her latest visit in June 2017 (to Aleppo, Homs, al-Waer, Madaya, al-Tall, Damascus).
Her early visits included interviewing residents of the Old City of Homs, which had just been secured from militants, and visiting historic Maaloula after the Aramaic village had been liberated of militants. In December 2015, Eva returned to old Homs to find life returning, small shops opened, some of the damaged historic churches holding worship anew, and citizens preparing to celebrate Christmas once again.
On her 5th visit in June-August 2016, she went twice to Aleppo, also visiting Palmyra, Masyaf, Jableh, Tartous, and Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as returning again to Maaloula and Latakia.
On her sixth visit to Syria, in October and November, she visited Aleppo twice more, as well as areas around Damascus. The testimonies Eva gathered in Aleppo starkly contrasted narratives corporate media had been asserting.
Many of her published Syria writings, videos, photos can be found at this link:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/